Founded in 1993 by brothers Tom and David Gardner, The Motley Fool helps millions of people attain financial freedom through our website, podcasts, books, newspaper column, radio show, and premium investing services.

This Beverage Company Has Doubled in 2012

Jamba has been blending up stellar returns this year.

The company behind the Jamba Juice smoothie chain has been a smooth operator this year. The stock hit a fresh two-year high this week, and it has already gone on to more than double in 2012.

There was a double dose of good news this week.

On Monday Jamba introduced a new a new fruit and dairy beverage for schools. The naturally sweetened smoothie hopes to make a mark for schools that have banned sugary soft drinks but still want some premium beverages to offer that pack the benefits of fat-free milk with real fruit.

On Tuesday the company announced that its 30th international location opened in the Philippines. This is Jamba's third franchisee-opened store in the Philippines, adding to its 20 smoothie shops in South Korea and another seven in Canada. This is a pretty impressive reach for a concept that didn't have a store outside of the United States until last year.

These are healthy times for Jamba. The move to gradually shift to a franchising model -- with roughly 300 of the 769 stores being owned and operated by the company these days -- has resulted in improving margins. Comps have also been positive for five quarters in a row, silencing the skeptics that figured that the proliferation of cheaper smoothie drinks being blended up at Starbucks(Nasdaq: SBUX), McDonald's(NYSE: MCD), and more recently Burger King Worldwide(NYSE: BKW) would hurt the company.

It obviously hasn't hurt. If anything the trend has only helped in educating the market that ultimately seeks out greater variety and more nutritional boosts out of their chilly fruit beverages.

After years of small deficits, Jamba turned the corner of profitability last summer and is expected to post its first year of annual profitability this year. Jamba always had a neat thing going. All it needed was competition to make it neater.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz calls them as he sees them. He does not own shares in any of the stocks in this story, except for Jamba. Rick is also part of theRule Breakersnewsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early.

Author

Rick has been writing for Motley Fool since 1995 where he's a Consumer and Tech Stocks Specialist. Yes, that's a long time with more than 20,000 bylines over those 22 years. He's been an analyst for Motley Fool Rule Breakers and a portfolio lead analyst for Motley Fool Supernova since each newsletter service's inception. He earned his BBA and MBA from the University of Miami, and he splits his time living in Miami, Florida and Celebration, Florida.
Follow @market